


Learned How To Cut Off The Looser Ends

by atti (attilatehbun)



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 03:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attilatehbun/pseuds/atti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate exhales again and looses the arrow. This time it's slightly up and to the left.  Maybe one day she'll stop overcompensating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learned How To Cut Off The Looser Ends

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted 6.11

::

  
_Thunk_   


The arrow vibrates in the target just slightly down and to the right of perfect center. Most people wouldn't see it it, would call the shot a bulls-eye.

Kate sees it and doesn't. She rotates her shoulder back and pulls a fresh arrow from the quiver at her hip.

"I don't know why you do this sport," Joey says idly, pulling her hair through an elastic to reform the messy bun at the back of her head. She stretches her legs out in the grass, white sneakers dirty and scuffed. "It's not like there aren't plenty of other PE modules you could take."

Joey takes other modules. All summer long she plays softball in between piano lessons and rehearsals, she kicks a ball around with the violinists and when each summer ends she goes back home to Wisconsin to win championship trophies for her high school cross-country team.

Kate notches the arrow and sights along it. She breathes out.

"Oh leave her alone, J," Ana huffs. "All the sports here are stupid, but at least Kate was smart enough to take arguably the least inane."

Ana does every required module grudgingly. She dyes her hair shocking pink every Friday night, staining a different sink in the girl's cabin each time. She wears a fake lip ring because her parents won't let her get a real one and sometimes acts like she only plays the drums because it gives her an excuse to hit things, but she's here on scholarship and talks about Steve Reich like she's thinking of starting her own religion.

Kate exhales again and looses the arrow. This time it's slightly up and to the left.

Maybe one day she'll stop overcompensating.

::

When Katie is six, her mother takes her to the shelter for the first time.

In response to her fidgeting, grubby chubby hands pulling at jeans, mary-janes scuffing, feet inclined to wander away, Katie's mother kneels. She kneels in front of Katie, takes her shoulders, thumbs on the balls of the joints, and looks her in the eye.

Katie's mother always looks her in the eye.

"Katie, these people need our help, and we are going to give it to them," Katie's mother says.

"Who are they?" Katie says, crossing one set of toes over the other. She doesn't understand why all these women are here, why some of them are asleep in the middle of the day, why some of them watch her mother so warily.

"They are very brave women," Katie's mother says.

"But why do they need _our_ help?" Katie says. She doesn't know what she has to give.

"Because no matter how brave and strong you are, that doesn't mean someone else can't still find a way to hurt you," Katie's mother says, gliding her fingers over Katie's hair. Katie feels a barrette slip loose. "That's why it's important to find people who can support you if you need it."

::

There's a boy in the store. He's got a bald head and he's leading an older man (his grandfather?) around by the hand, but that's not what Katie notices first.

The boy has a _huge_ black eye.

Katie ducks around other customers, weaves around and between and beneath the clothes racks until she's right next to him, at which point she pokes him in the arm and says, "Hi!"

The boy jerks away and steps in front of the older man. He glares at her, and it's a pretty hard glare.

"How'd you get that black eye?" Katie says and tries not to bounce on the balls of her feet.

The boy scowls a little deeper, glares a little harder.

"Did you get in a fight?" Katie tries again. She thinks she'd like to get in a fight someday.

"So what if I did?" the boy says. He thrusts his chin out. "What's it to you?"

"That is so _cool_ ," Katie says. She holds out her hand, remembers her manners too late. "Hi, I'm—"

But he snorts, rolls his eyes, turns away. He tugs on the old man's hand with a "Come on, Grandpa," and walks away.

And then they're gone, and Katie stands there, flushing hard all over. She doesn't have a chance to do anything else, she can't figure out what happened, she can't chase after them, she can't even open her mouth before she hears her father's voice booming behind her.

"Katherine _Bishop_ , what do you think you're doing!" Katie's father says, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her back through the clothes racks. "Do you know how important this speech is? We all need to be there, and now we're going to be late because you decided to run off." He pushes more racks out of the way, shoulders past the store clerks without a word, never looking back at Katie as she hurries along behind him. He says, "Your mother was going frantic, looking for you. This is not the way for a Bishop to behave."

::

Anatomy books tell Kate what the bones are, how they break. It shows her the muscles, how they move, where to find the nerves.

The law books show Kate nerves too, the other kind, the deeper kind. They show her how to sharpen her words and what to keep hidden.

Math books tell her of the odds and science texts tell her of the chance and history books tell her things they don't mean to.

None of the books can teach her when to strike.

::

Katie gets in lots of fights. She gets in fights between classes, after classes, in the lot where the older kids park the stupid shiny sweet sixteen presents they never need to use.

She fights because she's angry, though she doesn't know why. She fights because she shouldn't. She fights because she hates, hates these kids, hates this school. This school that won't punish her, no, won't suspend her, _expel_ her, no, The Academy is not _that_ kind of school, _thank you_ , where kids can do ordinary things like have disciplinary problems and get _suspended_ , how _gauche_. This school, where the Bishops donate so _much_ money, and Katie dear, maybe we should work on channelling your... _urges_ towards things like fencing or the debate team? This school of discreet words and carefully placed therapist and _why don't you keep that to yourself_.

Katie stops getting in fights, and that day is the day she stops being a Katie for good.

::

Kate's mom dies. She dies, growing smaller and smaller in a hospital bed, attacked from the inside out, and nothing Kate can throw at the problem does any good.

::

  
_Twangggg_   


A string on Kate's cello snaps mid bow stroke, and she only just manages to pull her fingers away as it rolls up, tension gone but still sharp, still capable of doing damage.

"Dammit," she says, lightly, under her breath. She pauses to hang her bow off the edge of her music stand and reaches for her case.

"What are you swearing about?" her sister says, suddenly behind her, bending to wrap arms around Kate's shoulders.

"I snapped a damn D string," Kate says, tugging at the curl of it to demonstrate. "It _was_ the oldest one, I guess."

"It's just as well, Kate," her sister says, because her sister has always respected her change of name, even when others forget. "We have to leave for the fitting in fifteen minutes anyway. She squeezes Kate's shoulders once, in a loose hug, then stands.

"Can't you just try the dress on for me?" Kate says, but lays her cello out in the case anyway, removing the broken string and setting it aside for later.

"I think trying on two dresses at the same time might just affect how they fit, Kate," her sister says. She holds her hands out for Kate to take and helps pull her to standing. "I know you hate everything about this wedding—

"It's such a _waste_ ," Kate says, practiced and familiar.

"—But it won't be for much longer, so just humor me? You know I'd do it for you."

::

They aren't even halfway through the ceremony and all Kate has in her hands is a bouquet of flowers. Lilies. Not what she'd choose.

Never what she'd choose, not against the men with guns that have just burst through the door and made their way up to altar in a wave of screams.

"Listen up!" they say, but Kate doesn't. She pushes her sister behind her, squares her hips and shoulders, drops the flowers. One of the men grinds them beneath his feet.

He shoves a gun right in Kate's face. She's never seen one so close before. If she tilts her head, she thinks she could see the rifling in the barrel.

"Listen _up_!" he says again and gestures with the gun.

Kate smiles. This might just be the beginning of what she needs. There's a crash of glass somewhere behind her, along with it more screams, but Kate.

Kate is already cracking.

::fin::

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from The Loser Wins by Atmosphere, because I continue to be the best at naming.


End file.
